Imagine your students walking into your classroom, eager to learn, without knowing they're about to embark on a mind-bending journey through the fascinating realm of the Mandela Effect.
What if we told you that you could transform a regular day of teaching into an unforgettable adventure of memory tricks and cognitive dissonance?
This blog post will dive into the intriguing world of the Mandela Effect. We’ll start by explaining what it is and then show you how to create a Mandela Effect quiz that will leave your students scratching their heads in amazement. Sound good? Let’s begin!
What is the Mandela Effect?
First, let's talk about the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people collectively misremember a particular fact, event, or detail, believing it to be one way when, in reality, it’s different.
Fiona Broome, a self-described "paranormal consultant," coined the term in 2010. She shared her memory of Nelson Mandela's death in the 1980s in jail. However, Mandela had actually been released from prison in 1990 and went on to become the President of South Africa. She was convinced her memory was correct, but this experience led her to believe this phenomenon might be more common than people realized. She created a website for others to share their own instances of this effect.
Interestingly, while the term itself is relatively recent, the phenomenon is perhaps not. People have always shared misconceptions or misremembered events. Only now, the internet and social media have allowed for the rapid spread of such examples, making the Mandela Effect more widely recognized.
What is a Mandela Effect quiz?
A Mandela Effect quiz is a fun game where you challenge your students to test their knowledge and memory by presenting them with a series of commonly misremembered instances. The students have to answer correctly or identify whether a statement is true or false based on their memory and perception.
Mandela Effect quizzes will not only be entertaining but also thought-provoking for your students. They highlight the fascinating ways our memories can play tricks on us. You can even use them in your classroom as icebreakers or as a fun way to engage and challenge your student’s cognitive abilities.
How to create a Mandela Effect quiz
Creating a Mandela effect quiz is a breeze in Google Forms. Here are the steps:
Step 1: Create a Google Form quiz
Click the “Blank” button to start a new form. Now, before doing anything else, let's turn this form into a quiz. This will allow you to insert an answer key with point values into your form.
To do this, toggle to your form’s “Settings” tab.
Enable “Make this a quiz” under the “Settings” tab. This will open up a bunch of new options for you.
You can decide when to release the results and change other respondent settings for your quiz here.
Step 2: Explain Mandela Effect in quiz description
Once you’ve made your form a quiz, you can name it appropriately. You should also briefly describe the Mandela Effect in the description below the quiz name. This will orient the students for the upcoming questions.
Step 3: Add your Mandela Effect questions
Now, you can start adding questions to your quiz.
Click the “Add question” button in the floating menu next to your quiz. It looks like a big plus sign.
Add your question and click the question format button to change the question format. Ideally, for this quiz, most questions should follow the multiple-choice format. We have some good questions to add to this quiz in the section below.
To insert the answer key, click the “Answer key” button on the bottom left corner of the question.
Select the correct answer and assign a point value to it. Now click ‘Done,’ and your answer key is set. Learn in detail how to set correct answers and assign point values to questions in Google Forms.
Best examples of Mandela Effect
Here are some examples of the Mandela effect that people commonly report:
- Nelson Mandela's Death: The belief that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980’s when he was released in 1990 and became President of South Africa.
- Star Wars Misquote: The commonly misquoted movie line "Luke, I am your father" from Star Wars, which is actually "No, I am your father."
- Berenstain Bears: The children's book series that many people remember as "Berenstein Bears" when it’s actually "Berenstain Bears."
- Fruit of the Loom Logo: The collective memory of a cornucopia (horn of plenty) being part of the Fruit of the Loom logo when it's not.
- Monopoly Man: The misconception that the Monopoly game's mascot, Mr. Monopoly, wears a monocle, which he doesn’t.
Step 4: Add images to make it trickier
All your questions don’t have to be in text form, you can add images as well. Sometimes, this can make the quiz trickier, but it also makes it more visually appealing and engaging for students.
To add an image as an option to a question, click the “Add image” button on the right side of the option. This will open another window to upload your desired image through various sources.
Upload all the relevant images for your questions, and you’re done! You can add the answer key for this question as well.
Step 5: Use Form Publisher to share responses
Now that you’re done making your quiz, there’s just one thing left to do. You have to figure out how to share the student’s responses with them. After all, it’s such an incredible demonstration of how our memory can trick us.
You can easily share your student’s responses with them with a simple Google Forms add-on—Form Publisher!
Create better quizzes and surveys with Google add-ons
With Form Publisher, you can seamlessly transform your quiz responses into stunning, personalized documents that you can instantly share with your students, saving you time and effort.Guess what? You can share these responses with fellow teachers as well! Or, you can save them safely at a preferred location on your Google Drive. Explore all that Form Publisher allows you to do.